


depths of memory

by valtyr



Category: Marvel 616
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-23
Updated: 2011-04-23
Packaged: 2017-10-18 13:47:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/189514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/valtyr/pseuds/valtyr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For Avengers Kink, prompt: "Bucky jerks off over Steve's corpse." Warning for disturbing imagery. (Set between WWII and the formation of the Avengers.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	depths of memory

Steve's dead.

He doesn't, always, remember who Steve is. Sometimes the only thing he can remember about Steve is that he _is_ dead, and it still hurts so much it confuses him.

He tells Natalia, once, or perhaps he tells her often and they don't remember it. He feels the warmth of her breath as they lie cocooned in blankets against the chill of the night, naked to share the heat of their bodies, only their guns still holstered in place. His pistol is heavy and cold at his hip.

 _Steve's dead_ he whispers into the darkness, and Natalia draws a rough breath, and squeezes his shoulder, gently.

 _Who's Steve?_ sharp, like she's wondering if she should know who Steve is. If she's forgotten something important. Maybe she has. He doesn't know.

 

Sometimes he remembers more. He leaves notes for himself, tiny etchings on the bedframes or pen on the walls or scraps of paper stuffed in cracks.

 _he was blond_

 _he liked m &ms_

 _he sang irish folk songs_

 _he kissed me for the first time in bordeaux_

After he writes that one, he tears it into tiny pieces and then chews them until the ink soaks his tongue and then he swallows, as if he can make the memory a part of him, and never again forget what Steve's mouth tasted of.

He finds the note _he drowned_ one day, and it gives him a sharp pain in his chest. He can't remember what Steve looked like, but he's seen drowned men and they look much of a muchness, swollen and livid. He dreams of Steve that night, sitting on his bed in the darkness, whispering words that are misshapen and incomprehensible because tiny fish have nibbled away his mouth and tongue.

He doesn't think Steve had anything important left to tell him. He's sure Steve told him everything, if he could only remember it.

He remembers more in dreams, and wakes warm and loved and painfully hard, and though he starts jerking off to those memories, by the time he's close it's all drained away and he can only see the corpse. Feel the heat seeping out of him - it's so cold here - as if it's going to pull him down into the ocean -

 _he fell into the ocean_   


\- to lie with him under the still weight of the water, grazed on by sea creatures until their bare bones fall together and are buried under the sediment and no one will ever find them again.

The thought of lying drowned in the blackness in Steve's embrace, the water slowly pulsing through them and dispersing them on the current makes his breath shudder, curling like smoke before his blurred eyes, and he changes hands, wraps his chill hand around himself and whines at the shock of it, thinks of cold hands drawing him down into the depths -

When he's done, the last shreds of the dream have trailed away and he's not sure why he's thinking of the ocean.

He remembers that Steve sang folk songs, and had blond hair.

He remembers that Steve is dead.


End file.
